“I just want to know – are you rooting for me?”
Have you ever read a book in one sitting, devoured every page eagerly only to then want to throw the book at the wall when you’ve finished?
Well, that was how I felt when I first read this book.
Here’s the thing, I love the characters. They’re quirky and they feel real.
Levi, Cather, Reagan and even Wren. There’s just the right amount of drama and angst. I mean sure, Cath annoys me at points but I still with sympathise with her.
By far the best thing about this book is the way Rowell manages to put you back in mind of first love, when having sex for the first time is a tangible and terrifying possibility. Honestly, she managed to capture that feeling, you know the one – when you’re just a bundle of nerves and suddenly you’re more aware of your own skin – so perfectly. I sort of felt like I was in high school again.
So why did this book annoy me so much? I mean, I love the characters, I love the raw emotion of the book and this was the novel where I genuinely fell for Rowell’s writing style. So what? What is it?
I invested my time in Cather, in her troubles and insecurities only to see so very few resolutions. Sure I was relieved when she and Wren made up, and sure I was happy that she and Levi seemed to be okay by the end of the book. But that was always obvious, that was always going to happen.
The thing that frustrated me is that Rowell spent the whole book building up Cather’s fiction writing project and I thought we were going to be able to read the whole piece. I thought Cather’s project was going to be where she made peace with her feelings about her mother. I thought in writing her own work she was going to recognise her passion for writing and maybe let go a little of Simon and Baz.
I thought it was going to be a lightbulb moment. A resolution of a sorts.
And every time she put off her project I felt exactly how Levi felt when they had that argument and he stormed out the room. I mean, how ungrateful and stupid to waste a second chance like that?
And when she did finally start writing it, she made it clear she wasn’t all that interested in it, that she would rather be writing fanfiction.
I wanted to scream.
Then suddenly the book was over, the final Simon book was out, Levi and Cather were a couple and that was it.
We got one paragraph of Cather’s writing piece.
I’d invested in Cather and I wanted to see her development, and I guess I sort of did so maybe my real problem is with the plot – there truly isn’t much of one.
As I said, I love the characters, their dialogue was natural and clever. The emotions in this book are raw and Rowell’s talent SEEPS THROUGH. But the ending ruined the high for me. It annoyed me that much.
So there we go.
Fangirl is the book that introduced me to Rainbow Rowell’s writing. If I hadn’t read it I wouldn’t have read Eleanor and Park or Carry On and Wayward Son. It’s especially jarring when you then read the Simon Snow series (WHICH YOU TOTALLY SHOULD) and you see how much Simon and Baz have developed from their modest beginnings in Fangirl. Fangirl is a book I have read and re-read and each time I experience that same flurry of feelings as I follow Cather and Levi’s romance.
So, do I think Fangirl is the best of Rowell’s novels? Truthfully…no I don’t. But is it worth reading? Hell to the yes!
And that’s my review. 🙂 READ CARRY ON YOU BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE!
– Rachel Writes x
Have you read Fangirl? What did you think of it? Leave your comments in the comment section below 🙂
The Talking Bookshelf 